Steep Bouldering On Limestone In Las Vegas, New Mexico

Last week Tara and I went down to New Mexico for a conference where I was presenting a paper on Native Americans, natural resources, and epistemology. The conference was in Albuquerque, sponsored by the Society for Cross-Cultural Research. On the way, however, we wanted to get in some bouldering and remote trail running in the New Mexican desert.

One of our goals was to try and find some new sandstone bouldering (which we know the location of, but have never been yet...), but because of the snow cover in and around Las Vegas, we had to opt for one of the old stand-bys: The Squat. The Squat is a classic New Mexican bouldering crag: dirty, some trash or graffiti around, and glue. It seems like almost everywhere we have bouldered in New Mexico, you encounter a little of this: as U-Mound there is glue, at Questa there is excessive cleaning and permanent tick marks, outside of Santa Fe there are bottles and cans and trash, etc. This should not dissuade anyone, as one has to remember that New Mexico is full of "independent thinkers" who more often then not visit these areas to drink a few beers, shoot a couple rounds off, and perhaps dump some trash. However, there is usually no one else climbing, nor is there likely to be in the future. I love New Mexico, and the bouldering there is stellar. If any of the areas in New Mexico where in Boulder or along the frontrange, one would be dealing with crowds, excessive cleaning, tick marks everywhere, tons of chalk, and just the tramplings of overuse. I'll take a little trash any day to boulder in a remote setting with the chance of encountering another climber at about 0% (unless you are at U-Mound, which is the Flagstaff of Albuquerque).

So, the Squat is one such place. It is a limestone cave/choss pile that has been glued together into a stellar bouldering spot with well over 20 problems between V3 and V12. Yep, there is hard stuff in New Mexico. We cleaned cobwebs off of most of the holds, so as I said, this place gets little traffic. It faces southeast, so in the winter it gets full sun until about 3:00 pm and will work anyone. Steeper then CATS roof, we have been climbing here for a number of years and have always had a good session. Plus, you can soak in the hot springs afterward!

Below are a handful of photos from the session. As you can see, problems range from 4-20 moves, involve tricky foot and hand beta, and require one to be strong on steep terrain.

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